[10] Scotland.  Inishglory is an island in the Bay of Erris, on
   the Mayo coast.

Upon this, Aoife was smitten with repentance, and she said, “Since I may not henceforth undo what has been done, I give you this, that ye shall keep your human speech, and ye shall sing a sad music such as no music in the world can equal, and ye shall have your reason and your human will, that the bird-shape may not wholly destroy you.”  Then she became as one possessed, and cried wildly like a prophetess in her trance:—­

  “Ye with the white faces!  Ye with the stammering
      Gaelic on your tongues! 
  Soft was your nurture in the King’s house—­
  Now shall ye know the buffeting wind! 
  Nine hundred years upon the tide.

  “The heart of Lir shall bleed! 
  None of his victories shall stead him now! 
  Woe to me that I shall hear his groan,
  Woe that I have deserved his wrath!”

Then they caught and yoked her horses, and Aoife went on her way till she reached the palace of Bov the Red.  Here she and her folk were welcomed and entertained, and Bov the Red inquired of her why she had not brought with her the children of Lir.

“I brought them not,” she replied, “because Lir loves thee not, and he fears that if he sends his children to thee, thou wouldst capture them and hold them for hostages.”

“That is strange,” said Bov the Red, “for I love those children as if they were my own.”  And his mind misgave him that some treachery had been wrought; and he sent messengers privily northwards to the Hill of the White Field.  “For what have ye come?” asked Lir.  “Even to bring your children to Bov the Red,” said they.  “Did they not reach you with Aoife?” said Lir.  “Nay,” said the messengers, “but Aoife said you would not permit them to go with her.”

Then fear and trouble came upon Lir, for he surmised that Aoife had wrought evil upon the children.  So his horses were yoked and he set out upon his road south-westward, until he reached the shores of Loch Derryvaragh.  But as he passed by that water, Fionnuala saw the train of horsemen and chariots, and she cried to her brothers to come near to the shore, “for,” said she, “these can only be the company of our father who have come to follow and seek for us.”

Lir, by the margin of the lake, saw the four swans and heard them talking with human voices, and he halted and spoke to them.  Then said Fionnuala:  “Know, O Lir, that we are thy four children, and that she who has wrought this ruin upon us is thy wife and our mother’s sister, through the bitterness of her jealousy.”  Lir was glad to know that they were at least living, and he said, “Is it possible to put your own forms upon you again?” “It is not possible,” said Fionnuala, “for all the men on earth could not release us until the woman of the South be mated with the man of the North.”  Then Lir and his people cried aloud in grief and lamentation, and Lir